What we heard
Here's our read of where the business is today and where you're taking it. Tell us what we got wrong.
Where you are
Where it breaks
What matters to you
2 bookings per location per day
About 24 a day across all 12. Some can carry more, and weak ones can close.
I would love two bookings per location per day.
$30 or less per booking
After instructors and facilities, that's the most a booking can cost.
Thirty dollars is kind of comfortable for me on a top end.
Know what you get
The budget is there, as long as you can see what it turns into.
I just have to know that that's gonna translate.
Progress you can see early
Not a six-month wait for the first sign that it's working.
After a week or two, we're getting somewhere.
What has to be true to get there
- Google counts every booking, once, so every dollar is judged on paid bookings and nothing else.
- The budget matches the goal, so every location you run gets enough to learn.
- Your site rebuild keeps tracking intact, so the ads don't go blind when the new site goes live.
- Each location can take the bookings we send it.
- Did we get this right? What did we miss about the business?
What we found
We reviewed your Google Ads account with view-only access, covering the last 12 months. Short version: the ads aren't the whole problem. What Google can see, and how the account is set up, explains most of it.
Since early July, Google has missed more than half your bookings.
Google Ads counts a booking only when one confirmation page loads. Since the week of July 6, it has counted less than half of what Google Analytics counts. Google's bidding learns from that count, so it has been working from a fraction of your real bookings.
The two counts, side by side
| Month | Google Ads counted | Google Analytics counted |
|---|---|---|
| June | 76 | 57 |
| July | 37 | 74 |
| August | 28 | 65 |
| September | 11 | 27 |
Bookings from ad clicks, as each tool counted them. Before July, Google Ads counted a little more than Analytics every month, which is normal. The flip is the sign that something changed in how bookings finish. It also changes the cost picture: in September, Google Ads showed about $76 per booking, while Analytics showed about $31. Your booking system is the tiebreaker.
The May drop lines up with a budget cut.
Your account spent $9,053 in April and $1,659 in June. Bookings fell with the spend. Over the same months, the cost per booking actually got better.
April to June
| Month | Spend | Bookings (Google Ads count) | Cost per booking |
|---|---|---|---|
| April | $9,053 | 202 | $45 |
| May | $4,437 | 115 | $39 |
| June | $1,659 | 76 | $22 |
The strong months ran at $6,500 to $9,000 a month in ad spend, more than the account spends today. The data points to the budget more than to competition. We'd like to know who lowered it, and why.
Doubling the budget didn't double the bookings.
Going from about $4,000 a month to about $7,800 added roughly 15 bookings a month. Two Performance Max campaigns run the whole account, and they hit a ceiling.
Why more money into this setup won't fix it
Every Search campaign is paused. Your ads show on only 13 to 30 of every 100 searches they're eligible for, and most of the misses come from ad rank, not budget. People are searching for what you sell in every market you're in. The current setup isn't winning those searches.
Half the budget lands on your homepage. Your booking pages already hit your number.
Ads that send people straight to a class booking page cost about $29 per booking. Ads that land on the homepage cost about $48, and they take half the budget.
Where the clicks land
| Where the ad sends people | Share of spend | Cost per booking |
|---|---|---|
| A class booking page | 35% | $29 |
| A city page | 12% | $40 |
| The homepage | 50% | $48 |
Google Ads' own count, January to October 2026. Renewal courses for healthcare providers convert best, which fits what you told us: they know exactly what they need. We also broke this out by location and by course. We'll walk through it together.
- How do you work out the $100 to $300 per sale today? Ad spend only, or with the agency fee? And bookings counted from where?
- Which page do students land on after they pay, and did anything about it change in late June?
- Did you or the agency lower the budget in May?
Our strategy
Learn what's working, then maximize it.
See what's working
Today, two campaigns, one for AHA and one for Red Cross, run all 12 locations, every course and every page together. There's no clean cost per booking for any one location, and no way to move money toward the one that's working. That's a big part of why more budget hasn't scaled.
We fix the tracking, give each location its own campaign, and report cost per booking by location and course.
Put the money behind it
Once the numbers are real, budget moves to the locations, courses and searches that book at your number, and away from the ones that don't. Every move is made with you, on your own data.
Plays 1 and 2 below are how we learn. Plays 3 and 4 are how we maximize.
Blood Work
Make sure Google sees every booking.
We check the tracking behind Google's bidding, then rebuild it so every booking counts once, wherever it finishes. Each booking carries its own ID, so nothing counts twice. We set it up so your site rebuild can't break it, and we coordinate with your SEO agency.
Until Google sees your real bookings, no budget decision can be judged. Included in the management fee.
Nesting Doll Intent
Separate searches by how ready people are.
Inside each location, searches that name the certification ("AHA BLS certification", "Red Cross CPR"), searches for a specific course ("BLS renewal" in a city), and general searches ("CPR class near me") each get their own ads and bids.
Searches that name the certification have been your most efficient, about two thirds of the bookings Google could tie to a search in your largest campaign, summer 2025. A healthcare provider renewing BLS and someone browsing for a CPR card shouldn't be bid the same way.
Gold Pan Technique
Put the money behind searches that already book.
We isolate the searches that book at or under your target, send each one straight to the matching class booking page, and win more of those searches.
Your booking pages already convert at about $29. Today they get a third of the budget.
Marketing Maturity Mountain
Move the money where the numbers say so.
Every location gets its own campaign and its own cost per booking. They share one bid strategy and one budget, so Google learns from every click across them and spend moves toward the locations with the most demand. When a location shows on about 8 in 10 of its searches and there's nothing left to add, the next dollar goes to the next location.
You said you'll fund what the math needs. This is how we'll tell you when to add budget, and when to stop.
Not now, and why
- Landing page testing. You told us you want to protect your SEO agency's rebuild. Once the new site is live, a separate booking page we can test without touching the main site is the next lever. We'll talk through the options on our call.
- SEO. That stays with your SEO agency. We'll stay in touch with them on tracking so the rebuild and the ads don't step on each other.
Your monthly investment
Each location gets its own campaign, its own booking pages and its own cost per booking. They share one bid strategy and one budget, so Google learns from every click across them and spend moves toward where people are searching. If one large market starts taking more than its share, we give it its own budget.
What this level buys
Projections, not promises. Based on $35 to $45 per booking, on searches for your courses.
No setup fee. The management fee is the greater of a flat fee or 10% of your Google ad spend. The flat fee is $2,000 a month for up to 5 locations and $2,500 for 6 or more, since each location runs as its own campaign. At these spend levels, the flat fee applies.
Per month
Ad spend is paid to Google directly. Your accounts stay in your name.
The math, on your numbers
Move the two numbers that decide what your ad spend buys. The spend follows the level you picked above.
Why the plan works on both numbers: the right searches and the right pages raise the booking rate, and fixing the tracking lets Google bid for what actually books. Projections, not promises.
Who you'd work with
A dedicated Growth Manager is your point of contact, with a Growth Director overseeing strategy and your goals. Google Ads and tracking specialists do the build. Your ad account stays in your name, and we work inside it.
- Does this order match how you'd prioritize?
- Which locations would you most want to win first?
- Out of everything here, what would make this a no-brainer for you?
Month one, step by step
Weeks count from the day we start, which we schedule once the agreement is signed. Bars marked YOU or BOTH are where your team is part of the work.
Swipe the chart sideways to see all four weeks.
Indicative. Bars marked YOU move with your web team's timing. Your current campaigns keep running while we build, and the ad budget steps up only after tracking is verified. You review everything before launch. Reviews come back within three business days, and if one doesn't, we proceed as submitted.
Fix and launch
- Tracking verified against your booking system
- Budget moved off the homepage and onto booking pages
- New Search campaigns live in the locations you pick
Follow the bookings
- Budget follows the locations and courses that book at your number
- Locations added or trimmed on real numbers
- Cost per booking read from real bookings, not estimates
Set up for the season
- A budget plan for February onward, when demand climbs back
- Landing page testing decided, once your new site is live
- Next locations chosen on real cost per booking
If this looks right, let's walk through it
On our call we'll go through the numbers by location, show client examples, and answer what's open. Reply to Jacob's email with anything you want covered.